Published Date

January 1, 1946

Resource Type

GI Roundtable Series, Primary Source

From GI Roundtable 19: Building a Workable Peace (1946)

Several questions emerge from our review of the wide range of economic, social, cultural, educational, and colonial services and activities to be undertaken by the United Nations. How will all these services and activities be carried out—and by whom? Who will man the agencies already created and those still to be established?

The Charter provides, like the League of Nations Covenant, for a Secretariat to carry on the day-to-day operations of the organization. Its head is the secretary general, appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. Under him, “such staff as the organization may require” will man the various agencies already noted.

The staff will be, to all intents and purposes, an international civil service. Like any national civil service, it will be selected from the most competent people available in the various specialized fields of action under the charter. Its members will come from many countries, but they will be responsible not to their home governments but to the United Nations. Not only the two administrative councils already noted but all the other agencies of the United Nations will be staffed from the central Secretariat.

Next section: How Does the Charter Promote the Rule of Law?